Hello all.
I'm red-faced and bored and looking for an excuse to take a break from this freaking Biomechanics report... lucky you for tuning in to experience my self-diversion.
In true cyclist fashion, I uncorked a bottle of cheap-ass pinot noir and poured myself about four fingers' in attempt to 'facilitate' the writing process. Two fingers later and the keyboard is already playing trecks on mee. I feel the fire in my cheeks and the sass in my brain, not too conducive to report-writing.
The past weekend was crazy: a ton of travel and race experience. I drove up to Walla Walla with Eric J. Rumps, leaving on Friday at about 4pm and arriving around 8:30. Rump(elstiltskin) is the definition of eccentric, and the four hour journey still has me reeling from cultural, physiological, and moral overload. He's a chemist/material scientist out at Micron and manages to put in enough training otherwise to really turn the screws on the local race scene, so we decked him in team clothing and styled him out for the weekend (that is, paid entry fee and made him wear one of our saggy retro jerseys).
Between topics of life on the farm and nanotech-specific polymers, he suggested I reach behind the seat and pour us out some fruit of the vine. He rolls in style: a fine, fine bottle of Primitivo aside two softball-sized wine glasses (custom etched from the Mondavi winery) in a convenient foam package. The trip went rapidly, to understate it, and upon rolling in to Walla Walla we decided to chase the fab red with a chicken burrito at La Casita Mexican restaurant.
We found our host house at about 9:30pm... Shawn and Matt had yet to arrive so we were the first to survey the scene and claim the most "ideal" bed space. Well.... let's get something straight about host houses: in general you end up with a pretty sweet family of cycling enthusiasts eager and willing to stuff you full of succulent simple sugars and tuck you in tight to a comfy bed. The ugly flipside are host bachelors; recent divorcees looking to rejoin any and every social scene by volunteering for random community events. We got the latter. Due to the scents of stale beer and sweat (urine?) Eric and I opted to sleep out on the trampoline.
Just like old (old) times as a lad, I was zipped up in a mummy bag lying on my back and staring at the full moon, with the plastic support beneath and the vibrations from Eric reverberating (and resonating) from the other side of the trampoline. However, I have aged in a few ways: 1. Mummy bags suck, and I can not sleep well on my back with my arms perfectly glued to my sides (if you really want to know I sleep with my forehead in the sheets and my arms akimbo... jsut kidding), 2. The omnipotent light from a fabulous full moon is actually too bright to sleep under, and 3. I can't see half the damn stars anymore since my eyesight is declining and I had to take out my contacts before bed. Nevertheless, the ambient noise from frogs, the smell of roses and Dogwoods and Lilacs, and the metronomic rhythm of Eric's gas problem made for some decent sleep with lucid dreams.
I'll skip the race crap, you don't want to hear that and I don't want to explain. I had a blast but am more eager to explain a quirky scenario: Lining up for the TT, approximately four minutes to "Go Time", I was chatting with an aquaintance regarding my upcoming thesis in the field of Biomechanics. So this referee/official overhears me and says "You biomechanists need to design an artificial appendix, one that works."
We get into this discussion (lasting about 3.5 minutes till I sped off for my event) about the incompatibilty of materials and the body's tendency to scoff at anything man-made we try to insert.
"Hell," he says, "I also got a bad heart, and they wanted to put a pig valve in me."
"Yeah, funny that our body is OK with swine material." Says I.
"Funny my ass, I'm Jewish. You think they make Kosher implants? Can you see a Rabbi blessing a chunk of ham-heart?"
I had a decent ride, got cleaned up and went out to breakfast. Chuckled to myself as I crouched over my plate of French Toast and Sausage.
Back to my report.... take care.
4.27.2005
4.14.2005
This Just In: Racer Boy Press Release
Antelope Island: 9 April 2005
Despite legitimate attempts to provide a neutral, unbiased recount of Saturday’s race, the following will most likely convey a grotesquely skewed version of how the BODE Team conducted itself. If you prefer an impartial report, speak to an inactive member of the peloton who was content to simply hang on instead of race bikes. Chris McGill and I, Don Calvino, did not travel 280-miles (each direction) to sit at the back of the pack. Nor did Chris parents’ offer the emotional and caloric support (host housing with scrumptious burritos) to see us passively pedal in the draft of other teams.
We loaded the BODE-mobile and escaped Boise’s magnetic field at 4:30pm on Friday afternoon, mentally and technically prepared for the forecasted 34-degrees-and-raining race on Saturday morning. The weather was surprisingly nice on the drive down, and although we didn’t risk ‘jinxing’ it we quietly prayed for similar weather during the race. Four point five hours later we pulled our oh-so-pro-looking Volvo into Chris’s parents’ driveway, visited a bit and ate some Mexican food, then crept into bed. I zonked out before Chris, but by 11:30pm we were both dreaming of antelopes and glory.
Eleven hours, three cups of coffee, and seven dollar-sized wheat pancakes later, we pulled into the parking lot on Antelope Island’s eastern edge. The Cat Fours and Masters were well underway, while hordes of Cat Three riders and roughly sixty Cat Ones / Twos prowled around waiting to begin.
11:45am, the pop-gun barked and everyone snapped in to begin the fifteen-lap, sixty-mile race. The weather held out, and aside from a 20mph wind it was beautifully pleasant. The peloton was quite nervous, as demonstrated when a fellow Boise rider (non-BODE) pegged the first cone on the first lap and nearly wrecked all five-dozen racers. Chris and I moved up to the front third of the group simply to avoid being broken, and within five minutes the attacks started flying.
I countered an attack with the sole (malicious) attempt of blowing an Ogden One rider out the back of the group, and by chance I got a gap with a few other riders. Matt Weyen, to be described later, bridged up to complete our group of nine riders. I assessed the situation: Orbea, Ogden One, Contender, Sportsbase Online, Porcupine, and BODE. Well represented: NAIL IT! We drove hard and within three laps had two and a half minutes on the main group. Back in the main pack, Chris McGill kept a tight rope on any individuals attempting to spoil our break’s success. A few teams missed the break and earnestly wanted to bridge, but McGill (whose legs and race-savvy are blossoming ten-fold each race) would allow no such thing. Within a few more laps the main group lost its impetus, though up ahead we kept it smooth and the gap widened.
In the main group: chaos. The aforementioned 20mph wind created unique conditions on each section of the course. On the tailwind-climb the riders averaged 28mph and were offered no draft, while on the western edge the wind drove hard from the Northeast and swept the riders left, across the yellow line, and into the left-hand gutter. The main group shattered into chunks of colored-lycra-shrapnel, with McGill toward the front and riding strong. However, due to the yellow-line violation by various individuals trying to draft and survive, the officials decided to disqualify the entire field! When alerted of the situation with six laps to go, our break had 4.5 minutes on the main field. At that point our break actually picked up its pace, ironically, and we shed three riders from our group.
To make a long story short, we kept the pace hot until the finish line. With three laps to go, Matt and a Contender Bicycles rider accelerated on the tailwind-ascent to break free from our group. Few people can match Matt’s power at 30mph, and although my legs are coming around I couldn’t respond. I drained my legs driving it hard to try and regain contact, but Matt and his companion widened their lead and maintained it to the end. My group of four popped one of its riders coming into the finish, and I took third in the sprint to the line.
The 52 riders not active in the front break voiced their frustration to the officials, many demanding a refund for entry and travel to a race only half-completed. To no avail, unfortunately. Chris asserts he was riding with a pair of “top-ten legs�, and I believe it, but the disqualification of the group prevented any placing beyond the top seven spots.
Great things are coming around for this team, and I’m anxious to see how the rest of our riders are pedaling. A few local races remain before we test our mettle against bigger fish in bigger ponds. Stay tuned for more blatantly biased accounts of our superhuman individuals. Special thanks to my mom and sister, aunt and uncle and cousin, and Chris’s family for the support at this event.
-Captain Clavin
Despite legitimate attempts to provide a neutral, unbiased recount of Saturday’s race, the following will most likely convey a grotesquely skewed version of how the BODE Team conducted itself. If you prefer an impartial report, speak to an inactive member of the peloton who was content to simply hang on instead of race bikes. Chris McGill and I, Don Calvino, did not travel 280-miles (each direction) to sit at the back of the pack. Nor did Chris parents’ offer the emotional and caloric support (host housing with scrumptious burritos) to see us passively pedal in the draft of other teams.
We loaded the BODE-mobile and escaped Boise’s magnetic field at 4:30pm on Friday afternoon, mentally and technically prepared for the forecasted 34-degrees-and-raining race on Saturday morning. The weather was surprisingly nice on the drive down, and although we didn’t risk ‘jinxing’ it we quietly prayed for similar weather during the race. Four point five hours later we pulled our oh-so-pro-looking Volvo into Chris’s parents’ driveway, visited a bit and ate some Mexican food, then crept into bed. I zonked out before Chris, but by 11:30pm we were both dreaming of antelopes and glory.
Eleven hours, three cups of coffee, and seven dollar-sized wheat pancakes later, we pulled into the parking lot on Antelope Island’s eastern edge. The Cat Fours and Masters were well underway, while hordes of Cat Three riders and roughly sixty Cat Ones / Twos prowled around waiting to begin.
11:45am, the pop-gun barked and everyone snapped in to begin the fifteen-lap, sixty-mile race. The weather held out, and aside from a 20mph wind it was beautifully pleasant. The peloton was quite nervous, as demonstrated when a fellow Boise rider (non-BODE) pegged the first cone on the first lap and nearly wrecked all five-dozen racers. Chris and I moved up to the front third of the group simply to avoid being broken, and within five minutes the attacks started flying.
I countered an attack with the sole (malicious) attempt of blowing an Ogden One rider out the back of the group, and by chance I got a gap with a few other riders. Matt Weyen, to be described later, bridged up to complete our group of nine riders. I assessed the situation: Orbea, Ogden One, Contender, Sportsbase Online, Porcupine, and BODE. Well represented: NAIL IT! We drove hard and within three laps had two and a half minutes on the main group. Back in the main pack, Chris McGill kept a tight rope on any individuals attempting to spoil our break’s success. A few teams missed the break and earnestly wanted to bridge, but McGill (whose legs and race-savvy are blossoming ten-fold each race) would allow no such thing. Within a few more laps the main group lost its impetus, though up ahead we kept it smooth and the gap widened.
In the main group: chaos. The aforementioned 20mph wind created unique conditions on each section of the course. On the tailwind-climb the riders averaged 28mph and were offered no draft, while on the western edge the wind drove hard from the Northeast and swept the riders left, across the yellow line, and into the left-hand gutter. The main group shattered into chunks of colored-lycra-shrapnel, with McGill toward the front and riding strong. However, due to the yellow-line violation by various individuals trying to draft and survive, the officials decided to disqualify the entire field! When alerted of the situation with six laps to go, our break had 4.5 minutes on the main field. At that point our break actually picked up its pace, ironically, and we shed three riders from our group.
To make a long story short, we kept the pace hot until the finish line. With three laps to go, Matt and a Contender Bicycles rider accelerated on the tailwind-ascent to break free from our group. Few people can match Matt’s power at 30mph, and although my legs are coming around I couldn’t respond. I drained my legs driving it hard to try and regain contact, but Matt and his companion widened their lead and maintained it to the end. My group of four popped one of its riders coming into the finish, and I took third in the sprint to the line.
The 52 riders not active in the front break voiced their frustration to the officials, many demanding a refund for entry and travel to a race only half-completed. To no avail, unfortunately. Chris asserts he was riding with a pair of “top-ten legs�, and I believe it, but the disqualification of the group prevented any placing beyond the top seven spots.
Great things are coming around for this team, and I’m anxious to see how the rest of our riders are pedaling. A few local races remain before we test our mettle against bigger fish in bigger ponds. Stay tuned for more blatantly biased accounts of our superhuman individuals. Special thanks to my mom and sister, aunt and uncle and cousin, and Chris’s family for the support at this event.
-Captain Clavin
4.08.2005
Ya hace un ano
"Isn't it ironic that, now that you aren't bulimic and obsessing about your weight, you're the smallest and fittest you've ever been?"
- Lauren Dorsch, an observation of her pasty-white, partially-clothed and apparently fitter-than-hell boyfriend on Thursday evening.
So nice to be out of that cloud. That unconquerable haze of worry and preoccupation that tweaked my emotions for so long. I can not believe that it is dead and gone, but it is. Do I still think about food; still get frustrated when I don't eat a 100% perfect diet all the time? Am I a cyclist? A perfectionist? Yes, to all of the above. The difference now is perspective. I now have the ability to step back and see my overall progression, the ratio of forward to backward steps, and to use that perspective to halt my temporary back-slides with food.
It's been about a year. Ya hace un ano. There is no tilda key on this white-bread-American keyboard so perhaps I should write an-yo instead of ano. Good things are happening in every facet of my life, but I am especially jazzed about my athletic fitness. An analogy, courtesy of my counselor:
Look at dogs. Look at greyhounds, St. bernards, labradors, and dachshunds. Have you ever seen a labrador as skinny, as lean as a greyhound? If you did, would you think him healthy? What about a greyhound; have you seen a greyhound as large as a labrador? Would you think that greyhound was healthy?
Within each species, each race or body type, there is a certain degree of variation. A robust and athletic labrador may reach a certain level of fitness, but will never look like a greyhound. The point? I'm nearing the bottom end of my spectrum of labrador fitness, and while I may still occasionally view those vieslas and greyhounds with slight comtempt, I am optimizing myself to the best of my abilities. And I AM FREAKING STRONG.
This afternoon I head down to Antelope Island State Park, just north of Salt Lake City, for race number three of my season. Wish me luck and join me in celebrating good health and a balanced perspective in life. This is so cool. -Calvino
- Lauren Dorsch, an observation of her pasty-white, partially-clothed and apparently fitter-than-hell boyfriend on Thursday evening.
So nice to be out of that cloud. That unconquerable haze of worry and preoccupation that tweaked my emotions for so long. I can not believe that it is dead and gone, but it is. Do I still think about food; still get frustrated when I don't eat a 100% perfect diet all the time? Am I a cyclist? A perfectionist? Yes, to all of the above. The difference now is perspective. I now have the ability to step back and see my overall progression, the ratio of forward to backward steps, and to use that perspective to halt my temporary back-slides with food.
It's been about a year. Ya hace un ano. There is no tilda key on this white-bread-American keyboard so perhaps I should write an-yo instead of ano. Good things are happening in every facet of my life, but I am especially jazzed about my athletic fitness. An analogy, courtesy of my counselor:
Look at dogs. Look at greyhounds, St. bernards, labradors, and dachshunds. Have you ever seen a labrador as skinny, as lean as a greyhound? If you did, would you think him healthy? What about a greyhound; have you seen a greyhound as large as a labrador? Would you think that greyhound was healthy?
Within each species, each race or body type, there is a certain degree of variation. A robust and athletic labrador may reach a certain level of fitness, but will never look like a greyhound. The point? I'm nearing the bottom end of my spectrum of labrador fitness, and while I may still occasionally view those vieslas and greyhounds with slight comtempt, I am optimizing myself to the best of my abilities. And I AM FREAKING STRONG.
This afternoon I head down to Antelope Island State Park, just north of Salt Lake City, for race number three of my season. Wish me luck and join me in celebrating good health and a balanced perspective in life. This is so cool. -Calvino
4.05.2005
Two's Day
Back in the swing this week. I don't really feel like I am caught up on sleep yet, and there's a nagging little feeling in the back of my throat, threatening to morph into some nasty bug if I don't heed the warning.
Lauren and I had a great evening last night. As she jokingly put it, "a solid afternoon and evening of pure Calvin time, no meetings or schoolwork or otherwise to pull me away." I went over to her place after my session with Ms. Stacey (counselor), and although Lauren didn't ask I sort of needed some mindless diversion to unwind from my 60 minutes of introspection. The session wasn't too revealing, just challenging in regards to my direction, priorities, and satisfaction. Still stewing on everything... I'll let you know if an epiphany hits me.
But yes, the evening went by splendidly. We decided to hit the transplanted Sun Valley coffee shop "Java", but were soon chased away by the truly poor selection of music blaring on the sound system. Being a Sun Valley-style java junction, you'd expect some decent music; anything other than cheesy late-eighties dance club favorites.... Pump up the Jam, Pump it Up. O---K.
Cooling coffee in hand, and bad electronic music looping through our brains, we skirted over to Barnes and Noble. I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet since Christmas and Lauren was eager to dig for some literature regarding the Catholic Church's future direction. Ironic, and sad I suppose, that I spent the majority of the visit bobbing my head and sampling new bands, whilst she studied up on the future successors to the papal thrown. Her passion and concern for the situation is amazing, and I feel like a jerk for not deeply understanding the magnitude of the situation. Raised as a Baptist, I more thoroughly understand Pot-Luck Etiquette than ceremonial protocol.
For now I just cant' wait to get home. It's only 12:43pm, but I arose this morning over at Lauren's before seven and came straight down to the U. The lab I taught was boring today, biomechanics was even worse, and my Dynamics homework stopped me dead in my tracks. Not feeling too productive. That's it. I'm off. At least the weather is cooperating today. Commuting and riding in the rain gets old, thus the 45-degree and windy-but-dry climate makes me smile. ~~*~~
Lauren and I had a great evening last night. As she jokingly put it, "a solid afternoon and evening of pure Calvin time, no meetings or schoolwork or otherwise to pull me away." I went over to her place after my session with Ms. Stacey (counselor), and although Lauren didn't ask I sort of needed some mindless diversion to unwind from my 60 minutes of introspection. The session wasn't too revealing, just challenging in regards to my direction, priorities, and satisfaction. Still stewing on everything... I'll let you know if an epiphany hits me.
But yes, the evening went by splendidly. We decided to hit the transplanted Sun Valley coffee shop "Java", but were soon chased away by the truly poor selection of music blaring on the sound system. Being a Sun Valley-style java junction, you'd expect some decent music; anything other than cheesy late-eighties dance club favorites.... Pump up the Jam, Pump it Up. O---K.
Cooling coffee in hand, and bad electronic music looping through our brains, we skirted over to Barnes and Noble. I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet since Christmas and Lauren was eager to dig for some literature regarding the Catholic Church's future direction. Ironic, and sad I suppose, that I spent the majority of the visit bobbing my head and sampling new bands, whilst she studied up on the future successors to the papal thrown. Her passion and concern for the situation is amazing, and I feel like a jerk for not deeply understanding the magnitude of the situation. Raised as a Baptist, I more thoroughly understand Pot-Luck Etiquette than ceremonial protocol.
For now I just cant' wait to get home. It's only 12:43pm, but I arose this morning over at Lauren's before seven and came straight down to the U. The lab I taught was boring today, biomechanics was even worse, and my Dynamics homework stopped me dead in my tracks. Not feeling too productive. That's it. I'm off. At least the weather is cooperating today. Commuting and riding in the rain gets old, thus the 45-degree and windy-but-dry climate makes me smile. ~~*~~
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